5 earn awards at DECA competition

by jmaloni

Fri, Jan 13th 2012 06:00 pm

Lewiston-Porter High School student Hannah Cupples accepts a trophy for her performance at the Region 12 DECA competition. Cupples was among hundreds of students competing in business-related events, and she was awarded for her effort in the public speaking (prepared) event. (photo by Larry Austin)

by Larry Austin

Students from Lewiston-Porter High School tested their
business acumen against hundreds of others at the Region 12 DECA competition
Sunday in the L-PHS auditorium.

Five DECA students from L-P came away with awards from the
event and earned the right to advance to statewide competition in the State
Career Conference in Rochester March 7, 8 and 9. Winners, and their events,
were:

Nicole Alonzo, business teacher at Lewiston-Porter and the
high school's advisor to the DECA club, said the school's DECA club is now in
its fifth year.

"It's getting bigger every year," Alonzo said of the club.
"At first, the students aren't quite sure what DECA is all about, and then once
they start doing it gets a little bit better and a little bit better."

DECA is a business club designed to help students get the
skills they need to be better in their careers and future employment, Alonzo
said.

"Not only the kind of skills that you need in the job
itself, the field in which you go into, but also those soft skills:
team-building, how to be more confident, how to speak in front of other people,
how to work with other people, how to manage your time. All those things you
can take with you in all aspects of your life."

Additionally, DECA enhances the curricular work the
students already do in the classroom.

"The business courses are very much about real world
experience, and so we really try to make sure that everything we teach has that
real world element to it," Alonzo said.

The Region 12 event at Lew-Port injected the spirit of
competition into the learning experience. A typical competition would present a
student with a problem and only a brief period of time to create a presentation
before a group of judges. The judges were business members of the community.

"You're meeting people in business. If you're in a
competition area like hotel and lodging, you're going to be meeting with a
judge who works in hotel and lodging," said Cheryl Chamberlain, co-leader for
Region 12 DECA.

"It's a competition, so if they're going to do well then
they have to prepare, they have to study, they have to plan," Alonzo said.
"There are some team events, so they have to learn how to work with another
person and to work well together. And you find historically the students who
get into DECA maybe in their freshman year or sophomore year and do it for
three, four years, it's important to them. They realize that this is the kind
of thing that they can put on a resume, that they can put on a college
application because it's a very well known organization."

Students who earned awards and can then advance to the
state competition continued a trend with the L-P DECA club.

"Every year so far we've always had winners here at
Lew-Port go from regionals to states," Alonzo said. "One year we had winners go
from the states to the national competition that was in Anaheim."